U.N Human Rights Chief Slams the U.S. for Not Providing Iron Dome for…Gaza

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights blasted the United States for not providing anti-missile protection for Gaza — where Hamas and other terrorist groups have been launching rockets and staging deadly incursions into Israel through attack tunnels.

AP

Navi Pillay criticized the U.S. for providing funds to Israel for its Iron Dome defense system, which has combatted the barrage of some 3,000 rockets fired at Israel in the past three weeks.

"They have not only provided the heavy weaponry which is now being used by Israel in Gaza but they've also provided almost $1 billion in providing the Iron Domes to protect the Israels from rocket attacks," Pillay said, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "But no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling."

"Many of my remarks have been directed to the United States since they are a party with influence over Israel to do much more to stop the killing, to bring the parties to the negotiating table. I've called also for an end to the blockade and an end to the occupation," Pillay said, a day before Hamas broke a three day cease-fire with a suicide bombing and kidnapping an Israeli soldier.

Pillay accused both Israel and Hamas of violating international law.

Though acknowledging that Hamas has placed rockets in hospitals and schools, she blasted Israel for striking those sites. Israel maintains its strikes have been in response to its troops being shot at.

"None of this appears to me to be accidental," Pillay said, according to the Associated Press. "They appear to be defying — deliberate defiance of — obligations that international law imposes on Israel."

The U.N. Human Rights Council last month decided to investigate Israel for possibly violating international law, while making no mention of investigating Hamas actions. The decision prompted Israel’s left-wing justice minister, Tzipi Livni, to tell the council to “get lost.”